There are approximately 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK. Understanding ways that the community can better support these individuals is crucial if we want people with dementia to live independently for as long as possible. In the talk, Mary explains how dementia can affect people’s ability to perceive aspects of the environment and will introduce the audience to basic dementia-friendly design principles that they can take home and carry out in their day-to-day lives. Additionally, the talk aims to challenge and reboot assumptions of what dementia is and demonstrate that people with dementia can live well if certain attitudes change, and if communities work together to support one another.
Mary is a dementia researcher working at the University of Northampton and is passionate about improving the quality of life of people living with dementia. Mary’s Psychology PhD research (Bournemouth University) investigated how we can create more supportive environments for older adults and those showing signs of dementia. Through a variety of experiments, that tested people’s spatial memory when learning new routes through environments as well as interviews with older adults, Mary was able to identify aspects of navigation that were more (and less) affected by early signs of atypical ageing. Her research findings have been published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at academic conferences, and she is keen to share the knowledge from this research base to see how we, as a community, can make small changes in the environment to better enable people living with dementia to continue living independently. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx